rned above them--
In pain, in peril, or in death--who are,
Or were, at least in seeming, human, could
Do as they have done by yours, and you yourself--
_You_, who abet them?

_Doge_. I forgive this, for
You know not what you say.

_Mar._ _You_ know it well,
And feel it nothing.

_Doge_. I have borne so much,
That words have ceased to shake me.

_Mar._ Oh, no doubt!
You have seen your son's blood flow, and your flesh shook not;
And after that, what are a woman's words? 130
No more than woman's tears, that they should shake you.

_Doge_. Woman, this clamorous grief of thine, I tell thee,
Is no more in the balance weighed with that
Which----but I pity thee, my poor Marina!

_Mar._ Pity my husband, or I cast it from me;
Pity thy son! _Thou_ pity!--'tis a word
Strange to thy heart--how came it on thy lips?

_Doge_. I must bear these reproaches, though they wrong me.
Couldst thou but read----

_Mar._ 'Tis not upon thy brow,
Nor in thine eyes, nor in thine acts,--where then 140
Should I behold this sympathy? or shall?

_Doge_ (_pointing downwards_). There.

_Mar._ In the earth?

_Doge_. To which I am tending: when
It lies upon this heart, far lightlier, though
Loaded with marble, than the thoughts which press it
Now, you will know me better.

_Mar._ Are you, then,
Indeed, thus to be pitied?

_Doge_. Pitied! None
Shall ever use that base word, with which men
Cloak their soul's hoarded triumph, as a fit one
To mingle with my name; that name shall be,
As far as _I_ have borne it, what it was 150
When I received it.

_Mar._ But for the poor children
Of him thou canst not, or thou wilt not save,
You were the last to bear it.

_Doge_. Would it were so!
Better for him he never had been born;
Better for me.--I have seen our house dishonoured.

_Mar._ That's false! A truer, nobler, trustier heart,
More loving, or more loyal, never beat
Within a human breast. I would not change
My exiled, persecuted, mangled husband,
Oppress